The Shed:  It Takes  Balls To Talk

This November, we are proud to be partnering with It Takes Balls To Talk – a campaign founded in Coventry and Warwickshire which uses sporting themes to encourage people, particularly men and people who care about them, to talk about how they feel.

It Takes Balls To Talk goes to where people are to have those conversations, reaching people who other services haven’t reached.  

Suicide is the biggest cause of death in men under the age of 45 and over three quarters of people who end their own lives are male. There are more deaths by male suicide than cancer and road traffic accidents put together.

Dr Alex Cotton (MBE and Hon DSc, University of Warwick) founded It Takes Balls To Talk in 2015 after working within NHS mental health services and West Midlands Police as a Street Triage Nurse, for over twenty years.

The Shed

Over the summer of 2024, Warwick Arts Centre’s carpenter Philip Roe built a bothy shed in collaboration with a community of men brought together by campaign founder, Dr Alex Cotton.  

Between 16-30 November, It Takes Balls To Talk will host activities in and around the shed with community and medical-based partners, to encourage safe discourse about mental health.

The structure will also be open throughout the month as a space to dwell, converse and reflect. It will then be donated back to a local community group as a legacy project to help “shed” the light on these important issues to those most in need.